Green, that pale green of spring, is the color to which I attribute God’s longing for us and for the fruit of our lives. Artists tend to see colors and shapes with the attention with which a starving man sees a hamburger.
Walking in the Denver Botanical Gardens, I came upon my favorite color, sprouting from a pool of water, in glass blown by artists and placed among the flowers of the Great Artist we call God, in whose image we are all made as artists.
That color of spring-green makes my knees go weak. I see that color of the first grasses and the opening leaves and I need to reach out to grasp something. I remember that flavor of cheese – one which comes from Switzerland and which is made from the first draw of milk taken from cows in the fist week of new spring grass. That flavor made me tear up. I miss being able to taste things. But I can still see things; and this I see – the color of longing- pale green.
The color is a color of wonder and of new opportunity. It reminded me of the Dream Together Conference which we will all soon attend at the Cathedral on October 11 as we are coached and contained in the expressing of our longings. (To Register go to
http://sjcathedral.org/DreamTogether)
And the remembering of that gathering of our cathedral community again quickened my heart, recalling this blessing from one of my great, sacred, teachers:
A Blessing of Longing by John O’Donohue
Blessed be the longing that brought you here And quickens your soul with wonder.
May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.
May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.
May the forms of your belonging–in love, creativity, and friendship– Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.
May the one you long for long for you.
May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.
May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.
May your mind inhabit your life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.
May your heart never be haunted by ghost structures of old damage.
May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.
May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.
~John O’Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us. All rights reserved.
